lifestyle

I could also title this post When You Have An Idea For Something And It Turns Into A Big Decision You Need To Make And No One Can Make It For You And You Aren’t Sure If You Even Need To Make It Exactly And You Wish Someone Would Just Come Over And Tell You What To Do And Make You Cookies.

But that felt like an obnoxious choice. So we’ll go with this one.

About a year ago, I drove a few miles down the road to my college Alma mater, walked into the admissions building, and took a long, deep breath.

It smelled like initiative, angst, and Y2K.

I walked up to the open desk in the center of the building, the kind Ron Swanson’s nightmares are made of, and requested a copy of my transcript.

They gave it to me, I’m happy to report, but only after I paid a way-too-long-overdue parking ticket.

And then in late December of last year (that’s 2016 – yes it’s taken me this long to talk publicly about it) I applied and was accepted into a graduate program without much fanfare.

I even forgot to tell John that I got the acceptance letter until the next day.

I shared this news with my letter readers several months ago and their kind response gave me the courage to share it here.

One normal question people ask when they find out I enrolled in grad school is ooo, why?!

It’s a normal question, one I would ask you, too, if you told me the same thing.

Why are you going back to school?

And this, my friend, is the question that kept me up at night for weeks before I made my decision.

Why would I want to do this?! I have a job, a family, a full life already. What is the actual point?!

It’s the question that begged for an answer while I tried to decide what to do next.

I didn’t have a clear plan with bullet points, a job I wanted to get that required this degree, or even the cultural expectation you have when you decide to go to college the first time because “that’s just what you do.”

At my age, going to school again is not just what you do. Unless you have a specific reason, requirement, or end game.

I talked with my spiritual director about this back when I was still in the deciding phase and she said something I haven’t forgotten (which she does every single time I’m with her.)

“Our Western minds are trained to go down the path of explaining. We think if we can understand it, then we can control it.”

It’s true, don’t you think?

I am conditioned to believe the only reason we should do things is if we know exactly why, where we are headed, and for what purpose.

No wonder we have trouble making decisions.

If we don’t have clear answers or sure-things, then taking a big step like this feels like a risk at best, a wasteful mistake at worst.

If I understand it, then I can control it.

This is what I know: I feel a call to the deeper life with Jesus and with people, in my personal life and my ministry life and my business life.

I’m not choosing a degree path because I feel like something is missing, but because finally, I can see the whole.

And what my wholeheartedness has been telling me over the past few years is that I want to learn more about spiritual formation, I want to become more fully myself, and I want to do it alongside a community of people who want that, too.

As of now, I’ve finished my first class and my second one officially ends in two weeks. It has already been life-changing.

In a little less than two years from now, I’ll have my Masters in Spiritual Formation and Leadership.

I don’t call it going back to school. You can, that’s fine. But I just don’t.

Going back sounds like I missed something the first time around, so I have to go back and find my way again.

Instead, I think of it as going forward.

I’m going forward to school and it feels just right.

But, of course, there are things to learn and the curve is steep, not the least of which include my actual school work. I’m learning how to talk about this decision with people. I’m learning how to prioritize my time all over again. I’m learning how to walk with Jesus and discern my literal next step.

I’ve been keeping this one close to my heart for the past year but it felt like time to share it in this space. When you write on a blog for nearly 12 years, stuff eventually finds its way here. It’s only natural.

Things are shifting in me and not a lot has landed yet. But this degree program is the next right thing for me for some reasons I know and some that I don’t.

If I am super honest?

One reason I’ve kept this quiet is because it feels sacred, in a way. I couldn’t bear to be part of the “women going to seminary/grad school as they get older” conversation that seems to be happening in places on the Internet.

I just want to take my next right step with Jesus and not have it be click-bait.

So there you have it. I’m figuring out how to do my job and be a mom and love John and serve at church and host a podcast and brainstorm my next book and go to school at the same time.

It’s a challenge and a lot but I have to tell you that I love it. I’ve cried and stayed up too late and gotten up way early and I’m figuring it out.

One immediate result of this should-I-or-shouldn’t-I decision making process is the podcast I started.

Because I was so worked up about making a wrong decision that it nearly paralyzed me from being able to make any decision at all.

I have released an episode every Tuesday for the last three months, but I’ve hardly written a blog post in that time.

It’s the perfect example of how our yeses come with some automatic nos.

So I’m falling in love with new things, with saying my words to you rather than writing them for a while.

This isn’t an announcement that I’m not writing anymore. I will always be writing.

Instead, this is a note to let you in on some things happening beneath the surface.

All of that, I trust, will make the writing better in time.

Meanwhile, my Mondays have looked exactly the same for the past three months: get the kids to school, head to my office, draft an episode of The Next Right Thing, record it, edit it, prepare it for posting on Tuesdays, the end.

It’s become a kind of liturgy for me, something I do with my whole body, in a way.

When I talk into the microphone, I actually feel like I’m talking to you. I move my hands way too much and have to edit out lots of extra sound because of all that movement.

But I love it, I just love it. And so I’m trying this, for now.

We’ll see what might be next.

I tell you all this because I want you to be in on it. I also tell you on the off chance you have a thing you’re carrying, too.

Maybe it’s something you’re thinking about pursuing, starting, making, finishing, or traveling to. But you don’t see the clear path, the end game, or the five year plan.

Is there something you need to go forward to, too?

Is there a path you’ve had your eye on but just aren’t quite sure?

Be gentle with yourself.

Get still.

Stop talking.

Pause the constant questioning of everyone else’s opinion.

Now hold that thing, whatever it is, in your mind.

Pay attention to your body and your soul – does it rise or does it fall?

If you receive my monthly letter, you’ve already known about this new development in my life for months now and I want to thank you again for your kind response when I shared this with you. I always share news with my letter friends first. Want to get on that list? Just add your name right here.

My junior year of high school, I was on the Varsity cheerleading squad. I’ll pause there to let you rifle through all your cheerleader stereotypes.

Go ahead. It’s fine!

We were an athletic squad, required to take a weightlifting class as part of our school curriculum complete with bench press, bar squats, deadlifts, the whole thing.

Just before Christmas that year, our squad competed in a regional cheer competition and placed 3rd. That earned us a spot at the UCA National High School Cheer Competition in Florida. Here’s a photo because of course.

We wore those white things under our uniforms for competition because it made our arms all look the same. I distinctly remember this being annoying. And hot.

We spent months preparing our routine down to every single count and sharp transition. We knew exactly where we were supposed to be and when because the quickest way to a sloppy routine was for someone to not know how to transition well.

Watch any cheer routine and you’ll see what I mean.

Many times in practice we would only practice the transitions – I stay put for four counts to let her walk in front of me, then I walk backwards four steps and turn to my left, two, three, four.

While the transitions were a necessary function of the routine, they didn’t share in the glory of the performance. No one clapped for an awesome transition. Basically you know you’re doing it right when it goes unnoticed.

I’ve been thinking a lot about transitions lately, because the truth is we are all either in the midst of some kind of transition, just coming out of one, or preparing to enter one and we just don’t know it yet.

To me, transitions in life are the exact opposite from the kind I’ve described in cheerleading.

You can rarely predict them, you certainly can’t practice them, but they are perhaps one of the most important parts of our life experience.

Change comes and we start running in to things, we take steps back and realize we should have stayed still or moved up a bit. We spin and try to figure out other people are doing in the same circumstance. We try to find what’s normal and expected.

If you’ve recently experienced some kind of life transition, know this:

The decision fatigue you feel is real.

The overwhelm and disorientation is not in your head.

It won’t always be like this.

And if you’re a maker? Your art will come back in time.

Let’s moonwalk our way back a bit in this story.

This spring has been a season of evaluation for me – about my writing, our writers membership site, my ministry, my work with John, our family commitments, some professional partnerships, and what I might like to do next.

Okay fine, it was last spring, summer, fall, winter and now finally this spring.

While on paper those plans sound purposeful and straightforward, the reality is it’s been a difficult, non-linear, often foggy meandering.

I’m in the midst of a transition, but it isn’t a short one and this in-between place has almost started to feel normal. Almost.

If I get stuck in my head too much, reasonable questions morph into doubts, uncertainty slides into panic, and lack of answers can tempt me to make decisions out of fear rather than from love.

And so I want to take a few moments and share what life looks like in this in-between place. Because the truth is, it still looks like life. Even in the waiting, the listening, and the watching for what’s next, there is still so much right here.

Let me tell you how we drove to the mountains during spring break with the kids, watched Mom’s Night Out as a family on a 1995 TV.

Let me tell you how our girls are almost finished with seventh grade and Luke is finishing fourth and I’m grateful to be around for it all. I make their lunches every morning and drive them places in the afternoon – band and piano, gymnastics and volleyball. It’s all regular and maddening and a gift.

Let me tell you how our neighbor, Ms. Giny, died last Tuesday, a few weeks before her 91st birthday. The preacher at her funeral said when their church members called their church prayer request line, the phone rang inside her house, right there on the edge of our cul-de-sac.

From the back of the church, I teared up thinking about the needs of the people being literally brought to her house first and from there the prayer chain was sent around the city.

But hours later when I sat across from my spiritual director, my guard was down and my hands were open and that was when I cried and cried, not the polite funeral kind but the behind-closed-doors ugly kind. Because when your house is the first one called on the prayer chain, there’s a reason.

You have to be a present, prayerful person for that. People have to trust you for that. You have to have priorities for that.

I want to be that kind of person. And she will be missed.

Let me tell you how we wrote a check for our taxes so big I think it weighed a pound. But it also made me grateful. You only have to pay taxes when you make money, right? And that’s a gift.

You probably already know about the coloring book release, but I’m not sure I told you that my favorite part about the whole thing was the opportunity to go around and meet some of you in person.

And it helped me remember how much I enjoy talking with friends and readers. Thank you for that.

Let me tell you how I launched my first online course twice over the past six months and how creating, teaching, and launching that took more out of me than I realized. I’m just now coming back into myself.

But I loved it so. I loved it so. I’m still figuring out how to love my work without letting it take over.

Let me tell you how I finished reading Wendell Berry’s Jayber Crow and I still haven’t recovered from it.

Let me tell you how I’m still sharing weekend links, but not on the blog anymore. Have you noticed? I send them out in an email and I know that might be annoying, but it’s a decision I made for my own sanity.

Sometimes to serve a reader well, you have to take care of yourself. And while I thought about scrapping the weekend links altogether, my love of supporting other writers was too great and that’s the only reason we’re keeping it up. So I compromised with myself by only having them in one place. Email won.

(If you want to be sure to get those, you can add your name here. We pick the best 4-5 posts we find on the Internet that week, guaranteed to help you take a soul breath.)

I’m telling you all this now because I haven’t told you some things in a while and, while I have been writing daily, I’ve not been writing publicly. At least, not as much.

Sometimes the breaks are necessary. Most times they are, for me anyway. But if you’re like me at all, you might struggle with getting back into your rhythm and maybe feel awkward to bumble back in to things, whether that be a small group you’ve not visited in a while, a book you put down and keep meaning to return to, or a conversation you’re listening to from a distance but haven’t stepped into yet.

But maybe you need time away from the words in order to find them again.

Maybe you need some space from people in order to remember why you need them so much.

And if you haven’t been to your yoga studio since election day and you end up going back on your 40th birthday, you might feel like a superhero just for being alive.

I know I did.

When life becomes unpredictable and unsure, the first things to drop off the list are often those things our souls most desperately need for health: space, deep breath, and creativity in the presence of Christ.

If we neglect to cultivate this space on our regular Tuesdays, it won’t be there to lean back into when our world turns upside down.

It’s one reason I work so hard to try to create a little space for your soul to breathe here.

It’s because God has ways He wants to show Himself to us and they’re all wrapped up in love. And then He has ways He wants to show Himself to the world, and it starts with us. He comes out unique in us, through the filter of our personality.

He just asks us to remember He’s with us and within us in every moment – whether it be a regular Tuesday or a sudden loss or an anticipated, joyful transition we knew was coming.

And I think He always wants us to know it’s not too late to come on back. We don’t have to walk as far as we think.

When I’ve neglected to engage in something I love – writing, walking, relationships, or something else – it can feel like I have to somehow re-trace my steps to get back to where I was before. It feels too hard. That may be true when you take a wrong turn on the highway, but not with this.

No matter how far a change in your routine has carried you away, know it’s always only one step to find life again.

One walk around the block.

One prayer in the morning.

One conversation.

One blog post.

One moment.

So here’s to taking the next right step.

Here’s to refusing to let our long absence keep us from raising our hand again.

Here’s to letting go of the myth that there is a normal to get back to anyway. Maybe we’re not meant to go back. Maybe we’re simply asked to take the hand of our friend Jesus and do the next right thing in love.

If you are a human and are seeing this field, please leave it blank.

I'm all about creating space for your soul to breathe so you can discern your next right thing. If you want to begin to cultivate quiet but don't know where to start, sign up to receive Seven Days of Still Moments, a free reflection delivered to your inbox everyday for a week. You can of course unsubscribe at any time.

We confess our desire to light up our worlds with our own abilities, smarts, and accomplishments. May we have the courage to revisit our associations with the word small. May we be willing to change our minds about it, to decide to fold ourselves into it rather than run fast away.

Last week I mostly felt normal and good and fine during the day, but when I settled down to read or try to sleep at night, there it was: my loud, pounding heart.

I googled “heart pounding loud” more times than I want to admit to you. But it’s because I kept looking for a different answer than the one I was getting.

All signs pointed to anxiety.

I didn’t feel anxious, couldn’t point to a reason why my heartbeat sounded like a drumbeat. But sometimes our bodies know things before our minds can catch up, and I feel sure my heart was trying to tell me something.

When my insides start to hum with that familiar low-grade buzz, it’s a sure sign for me that my soul is being held under the thumb of hustle once again.

I don’t want this to be normal.

But first, a word about hustle.

I believe hustle can be a good thing.

As a writer, my ability to hustle is both a gift and a skill I’ve learned over time. I would never have finished a book without it, not to mention four of them. I would not be able to keep up a blog for the past 11 years, co-run an active membership site, or get dinner on the table at night.

The problem for me comes when the healthy hustle energy needed to finish specific tasks morphs into a general state of low-grade anxiety even in the midst of non-tasks.

The line from one side to the other isn’t always easy to see.

Here are three signs you’ve crossed it.

1. You’re distracted.

The hustle hostage often comes on the tail end of a big project. You’re working hard toward a deadline and you make it! But weeks later you realize you’re treating everything like it has a deadline even though it doesn’t.

I have also experienced this after back-to-back travel, a busy weekend with houseguests, or when our routine is interrupted for an extended period of time.

To counterbalance the frenzy, I might try to do something calming like read a book. But instead of sinking into the story, I read two sentences and notice my mind wandering.

Or I’ll take a picture of the book and put it on Instagram instead of actually enjoying the book. The chronic inability to focus is a sign you may have crossed the line.

2. You lack inspiration.

When hustle has seeped into the level of my soul, I realize it most readily when I lack inspiration. I’m particularly sensitive to this because, as a writer, inspiration feels important.

To be clear, it’s maybe once a month that I write from a truly inspired place. Usually it’s more of a discipline, a walk of faith from one word to the next, trusting that because God made me a writer, he will turn my tired words into something meaningful eventually.

But when it comes to my life in general, I know hustle has taken over when I don’t feel inspired about anything.

Whether I’m in my kitchen, deciding what to wear, planning out my calendar, or having a conversation with John, if I feel unable to see the lovely, if I notice that I am only able to see the downside of everything, this is when I know hustle has too loud of a voice.

3. You have decision fatigue.

From inability to choose my meal at a restaurant to prioritizing goals and vision for my work, when hustle takes over I feel unable to make a decision.

Sometimes this feels like I’m drowning in a sea of options, as if there are so many directions I can go and I don’t know which to pick. Other times it feels like the opposite, like all my options have dried up completely and any hope for moving forward is gone.

Maybe you can relate to this distracted, grey, indecisive mindset. Maybe you are feeling it too: the rush to produce, the pull to compete, the thoughts flying fast and furious, the mad sprint toward the finish line.

I’ve got a secret for us both: that kind of race doesn’t have a finish line. It just keeps on going as long as we’re willing to run.

There have been times I’ve been tempted to compare what I’ve accomplished in the past with what I’m unable to do now.

I’ve written all these books – why can’t I manage to write this email or make this simple decision or finish this paragraph in this book?! Why can’t I keep my mind from wandering during a five minute prayer?!

That’s when I know I’ve allowed the hustle mentality to seep into more of my daily moments than is necessary.

When I feel overwhelmed in my schedule, the answer might be to organize my calendar. But when I feel overwhelmed in my soul, these kinds of rigid systems no longer work.

Because the soul and the schedule don’t follow the same rules. My soul is begging me to remember this.

“The deepest need of my soul isn’t a personal organizer or an empty inbox. The deepest need of my soul is Christ. But the problem is, I often forget where to find him.”

– Simply Tuesday

The gift of friendship with Jesus is that there is no long, meandering road back to Him. Though it may feel as though I’ve hustled my way far off the path with Him, the truth is He’s never far away. I don’t have to retrace my hurried steps to find my way to Him again.

I simply turn around and there He is, walking right with me in the weeds, finding His way with me in the darkness, ready to be enough for me in every situation.

Yesterday I did a Facebook Live on my author page sharing about these very things if you are someone who prefers listening to reading. I’ll include that video in this post so you don’t need to click over to Facebook.

Basically I shared everything I’ve said here in this post except with a lot more annoying ums and likes and you knows.

At the end (about 8 mins into it) I share one thing I do to help to hush the hustle and I hope it’s helpful to you.

For even more practical help to create space for your soul to breathe in the midst of your fast-moving world visit SimplyTuesday.com and watch a free video series I created just for you. Transcripts are provided for each video for my Deaf/HOH friends.

As the world shouts and clamors chaotic around us, God whispers songs of hope over our hearts. My greatest joy in life is simply holding a megaphone for His words as He calls His children, the artists, to Himself.

For over six years I’ve been writing about art and creativity. I’ve been paying attention for even longer than that.

My humble hope is to be not only a fellow journeyer on the creative path but also a gentle guide. As I watch, listen, and create, I see a stark difference between the creative women who create from a place of wholeness and those who create from fear.

Here are 8 qualities of the whole-hearted creative woman.

1. She see limits as opportunities.

She no longer says well if I had more ______, then I could ______. She’s put excuses aside.

Now she understands her real life, her real budget, and her real amount of time is not keeping her from her creative work. Whole-hearted creative women know our limits can be gifts if we let them be. We simply have to do what we do best: receive the gift of the present moment with all of its limits and potentials and be creative with what we have.

2. She integrates her creative work into every part of her life.

Because she has to. She is not just one thing. Wholehearted creativity means embracing our whole lives, refusing to compartmentalize. We are mothers and musicians, students and social workers, wives, teachers, cooks, maids, cheerleaders, friends, boss ladies, dancers, painters, and accountants. We bring our creative selves to each situation, open and ready and generous.

3. She believes deep in her bones there is enough to go around.

Other people’s success does not freak her out. Freak outs are for amateurs. She doesn’t hide behind comparison or excuses. Instead, she champions the work of others and hands out her support with grace and compassion.

4. She knows her art is the evidence, not the goal.

The wholehearted creative woman knows that art is not simply the work of her hands. Her truest artistic work is being fully herself in the presence of others.

The book, the painting, the meal, the presentation are all simply evidence of a deeper art happening within the soul of the artist.

Art is what happens when we dare to be who we really are.

Whatever comes out as a result of that – whether you teach, sing, build, write, love, help, or calculate; if you cook, parent, lead, clean, organize, or listen – these are evidence of a person who is fully alive.

5. She doesn’t wait to feel qualified.

When she’s tempted to think maybe she got this whole calling thing wrong, she remembers that catchy phrase Mark Batterson said, that “God doesn’t call the qualified, he qualifies the called.” She remembers Moses, Esther, David, Mary and Joseph. Oh yeah, she says to herself. I am equipped because God is with me.

6. She no longer fears the silence.

She has made her peace with the silence she sometimes hears when she asks what is next. She trusts the inspiration will always circle back around again. She listens in the darkness and creates her way through it because sometimes that’s the only way out.

7. She understands the soul and the schedule don’t follow the same rules.

The days of trying to force her soul to sync up nicely with her schedule? Those days are past. Now she understands the deep work happening in her soul cannot be rushed, simplified, or systemized. That is not her job. Instead, she pays attention. She listens to the gentle heartbeat of her own life. She refuses to try to force clarity out into the open before it’s time.

8. She knows she’s an artist.

Though we may not all be artists by profession, we are most certainly artists by design. She accepts her birthright with a humble confidence. She is made in the image of a creative God and this means she has a job to do.

Her job is to show up in the world with her whole heart and do the next right thing in love.

For the last eight years, I’ve been working from home. I started off writing on a blog as a hobby but I eventually decided to write a book.

That book led to three more books, speaking engagements, co-running a membership site, a podcast, and my own online course. Now writing is my full-time job and it all happens right here in my house.

All the while, my three kids and my husband are people who need to be clothed and fed, not to mention seen and loved.

As much as I love the flexibility of working from home, sometimes I long for the clear lines a drive to the office in the morning seem to offer. But we are figuring out how to make this whole “Mom works from home, where are their socks, meet that deadline, boil the water, finish the laundry, write this book chapter, record those videos in the closet, sign their homework papers” thing work.

Here are five ways I stay productive while I work from home.

1. Craft purpose in the dark but plan in the light.

If I don’t have a clear vision or purpose for my work (either short term or long term work), I feel like a crazy person. Add laundry and home chaos to all of that and it’s goodbye forever to productivity.

What I’ve found works best is to craft my purpose and vision in the dark hours – either morning before anyone wakes up or evening after they all go to bed. Then, when John and I schedule our week together while the kids are eating breakfast, our step-by-step plans can be made and followed in the daytime.

If I try to craft a plan for my day before I’ve developed a vision for my work, I’ll be planning for stuff I might not even value. It’s like trying to organize your house of clutter. Where do I put this sock that has no match!

Instead, clear out the clutter first, discover your purpose and vision in the quiet hours so that you can execute a plan that aligns with your vision.

2. Trade the to-do list for a done list.

I’ve been making to-do lists since middle school. As my fellow list-lovers know, one of the greatest discouragements after a days work is when the list remains largely un-checked. Over the last six months or so, I’ve changed the way I make my lists.

I have a large list for the week of things I need to finish. But when I sit down to my work for the day, I have a blank page next to me with my tasks in mind.

I write one task on the page with a box next to it and I work on that one task only. When it’s finished, I check it off and only then do I write down the next task.

This has been unicorn magic for me because at the end of my work session, I have a fat checked off list rather than a sad, anemic one. Progress!

3. Face away from the room.

If you only have an hour in the day to work, you can’t spend it looking at all the mess in your house because inevitably, you will put your work off until you can just tidy up the living room real quick. Soon that turns into cleaning out the closets.

Ask me how I know. Never mind, don’t ask.

Easiest solution: sit to work in a spot where you see as little of the room as possible. When I realized how much of my mental energy was spent cleaning my house (even only in my head!) I immediately turned my desk around to face the window.

Twenty seconds and done.

If you have a desk, face the window. If you work from the kitchen table, choose the seat so you can’t see the sink.

Force yourself to face away from your house while you work so you don’t get distracted.

4. Clear the surfaces.

If you can’t escape the mess of your house, the very most I allow myself to do during work times is to clear the surfaces. My sister, The Nester, taught me two golden rules of clean surfaces:

Soapy Rags: A hot, soapy rag goes a long way on a kitchen table. If the kitchen is a mess, just clean the table off real good, sit down, face the window and ignore the rest of the house.

Make Mine Pretty: This means if you have a choice between two equal things, why not choose the pretty one?

Case in point: soap. John buys the fluorescent blue brand of soap that looks like space poison.

I buy Mrs. Meyers with beautiful scents and lovely packaging.

It sits on our counter out in the clear blue open. Why not choose the pretty one?

5. Take a walk.

Since I spend a lot of my work time on my computer, I try to do things that are the opposite of the internet when I start to feel like a robot.

One of my favorite productivity boosts is to take a short break from my work and walk around the block. I leave my phone at home and practice walking without an agenda. It’s the best 12-minute re-boot I’ve found.

“Essentialism is not about how to get more things done, it’s about how to the get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.” Greg McKeown, Essentialism

For nearly 11 years I’ve been writing online. The online space is growing and changing and doing it’s internet-y thing.

My work in this space is changing, too. I’m becoming more discerning about my yes and my no.

I’m finding ways to provide income to not only pay for running this small business, but to also provide for my family so that I can continue to serve you the ways I feel called to serve.

Sometimes it feels tricky to be both an author who writes about life with Christ and a creative entrepreneur excited to try new things.

For a long time I thought I had to choose between those two parts of myself.

Now I realize I don’t. I’m both and that makes my work better.

One of the reasons I haven’t quit yet is I’m super picky about who I take advice from.

Just like money, time, and influence, the Internet is inherently neutral. What makes it bad or good is what you choose to do with it.

We all know this.

Instead of giving up on the online space because it’s loud and distracting and overwhelming, I am learning ways write on the Internet without losing my mind.

1. If you’re a blogger, post less.

Personally I aim for 2 posts per week, one regular post and one For Your Weekend post.

2. If you’re a reader, read less. i.e. Unsubscribe.

I unsubscribe from things all the time. In fact, I’ve unsubscribed from everything except my top, most favorite, can’t-miss blogs. That means I only regularly read less than 10. And it’s delightful. (And if you’re a writer, be a can’t-miss blog and/or newsletter writer.)

3. Round Ups.

I write a round-up post each weekend called For Your Weekend and other bloggers do this as well. I glance at those weekly roundups to see what other writers have found that I’ve missed in various spaces.

4. Sign up for Newsletters.

While I’ve unsubscribed from a lot of blogs, I choose to subscribe to the newsletters of my favorite online writers because, if they’re doing it right, they share some of their best stuff in these.

5. Chase the fun.

It’s the best online advice I’ve heard, said by Annie Downs several years back when asked how to stay sane online: Chase the fun. When it comes to social channels, choose because of fun rather than for fear of missing out. For example, I love Instagram because it’s fun for me. I mostly ignore Twitter because it isn’t.

6. Install Rescue Time.

It’s an app for your computer and I’ve installed it so I can easily see how much of my time online is productive vs. distracting. Super helpful.

7. Identify panic triggers.

When I’m online and feel my soul start to shake on the inside from a low-grade scattered panic, I ask myself why and I’m starting to pay attention. Your triggers won’t be the same as mine, but it’s important we know them.

For those of us who work online, turning the computer off isn’t always an option. So I’m paying attention to the panic triggers and doing what I can to avoid them.

With all the noise, we have to work harder than ever to remember why we do this and to actually do it well.

We don’t have time to allow the intention for our work to get buried underneath a list of non-essentials.

If you’re like me and part of your job requires you to have an online presence, maybe you wish there was one place to go to get solid advice, tutorials, and action steps for improving your blog, social media, and business.

In the spirit of full disclosure, everything in this bundle won’t all be a fit for you. But I’m sharing it because there’s enough here to get your money’s worth and then some.

For example, one of the courses in the bundle is my sister’s course called Instavaluable where she shares 7 basic strategies to use Instagram with purpose.

You can get her course in the bundle for less than what they normally sell it for plus 61 other resources and a ton of bonuses for free.

Take a look at the bundle and see which resources will help you meet your goals with more ease and less overwhelm. If you write online, it’s a no-brainer deal. It’s only available for 7 days so check it out!

As always, I only share content and resources with you that I hope will help create a little more space for your soul to breathe. I have great respect for the folks who run this bundle and it’s a deal I couldn’t keep to myself.

I share it with you as a glad affiliate, which means the links I share in this post are affiliate links.

Just when I thought I couldn’t love Deidra Riggs an ounce more, she goes and writes this beautiful post about what it really means to be a successful entrepreneur. You’re going to love this peek into the mid-1900s and what Deidra’s grandmother can teach all of us about business, faith, and life.

When my grandmother became a widow, she had two sons. The oldest was three years old and the youngest (my father) was two.

A couple of years ago, on a rainy evening, after my nephew’s little league baseball game, my dad drove me by the house where my grandfather died. It’s a small, white bungalow, on a corner lot, on top of a tiny mound of earth in rural Virginia.

One evening in that house, while my grandmother got the two boys ready for bed, my grandfather was getting ready, too. He was looking forward to a hunting trip he had scheduled for the next day. He went into the bedroom to get some stuff together, and he never came out.

He passed away from a brain aneurysm. Just like that. The year was 1942.

At the time of his death, my grandfather was employed as an agricultural extension agent for the county where he and his young family lived. His income kept the family afloat and his death left a gaping hole, not only in the hearts of his young wife and boys, but also in the practical aspect of putting food on the table. And so, my grandmother went to work.

Family members rallied around the small, young family and they helped my grandmother open a general store on Rural Route 2 in Buckingham County, Virginia.

By the time I came around, the general store was a major hub of that rural community—second only to the Baptist church just across the field. My grandmother sold everything from penny candy and Camel cigarettes, to washtubs and overalls, guns and ammunition.

During hunting season, at the end of each day, pickup trucks rolled across the gravel parking lot by the dozens. The hunters would slide down from their worn out cabs and walk around to the back of the truck to proudly show my grandmother a bunch of pheasants, or invite her to count the points on the antlers of the deer. Then, the hunters pulled their vehicles up to the gas pumps and filled up for the next day’s journey.

Inside the store, unfinished wood floors bore the dust of the day and the pot-bellied stove offered a place to warm up before heading home for the night. Each time someone walked through the door, the bell above the entry rang and the people who were already there hollered out a greeting.

Someone might drop a few dimes in the jukebox and my grandmother might let me slide open the top of the icebox with the Pepsi-Cola logo printed on the side. If I was lucky, there’d be an ice cold chocolate soda in there, waiting just for me.

The men drank beer and couples danced and cigarette smoke hung like mist in the air. I didn’t even know I should care about any of that. I climbed up on the stool behind the counter and helped my grandmother count the change and work the cash register and weigh the cold cuts on the scale.

It took me decades to realize my grandmother was an entrepreneur. As I’ve grown into my vocation, I’ve searched for mentors to advise me on how to manage this, or handle that. I’ve read the books, paid for the seminars, listened to the podcasts.

Then, one day, I realized I’d had the best mentor a person could ever wish for. My grandmother wasn’t working a strategy or following a formula. She was sensible and she turned a profit, to be sure. But she didn’t let the business run her.

I have not doubt that, in the beginning, when it was just her and those two little boys, she had nights of panic and days of worry. But, when my dad talks about those days, it’s always with a warmth that sort of spills out of him.

My grandmother passed away more than ten years ago, but the lessons she taught me have stuck, even though she never sat me down and said, “Let me teach you a thing or two.” Recently, I took some time to think through the business values I caught from my grandmother, just by sitting up on that stool behind the counter and helping her work the cash register.

I can sum them up like this:

1. Have faith.

My grandmother was always saying, “Keeping looking up.” No matter how bleak things looked, that was her standard response.

The store was closed on Sundays, no matter what. My grandmother sang in the choir, gave to the church consistently and regularly, and taught Sunday School. Sunday was the Lord’s Day and there was no use trying to convince her otherwise.

My grandmother’s faith was her bedrock. The store was her livelihood but, the way she saw it, she wouldn’t have had the store if it hadn’t been for God.

2. Help others.

The general store wasn’t just a store, and my grandmother wasn’t just a shopkeeper. The general store was there for the community.

My grandmother saw to it that people were registered to vote, that they were taking their medicine and going to the doctor, and that they got a ride to the city if they needed one.

The store was a means to an end for grandmother. It was the way the community stayed connected during the week and, in many cases, it was the way the community stayed fed.

3. Have fun.

Remember that jukebox? I may have my grandmother to thank for the spontaneous dance breaks I’m likely to take in the middle of an ordinary work day. There was a lot of laughter in my grandmother’s store. There was storytelling and back slapping and dancing and lots of space to breathe. My grandmother was a master of making the workplace fun.

My grandmother was the very first entrepreneur I ever knew. From the moment I met her, without my even knowing it, she was teaching me how to work for myself and take care of myself.

My grandmother ran that general store. And, when I say she ran it, I mean she raaaannnn it. My grandmother raised her children, kept a roof over their heads and shoes on their feet and, when the time came, all of her children went to college and graduated.

She may have been making a living, but even more than that, my grandmother was making a life.

Deidra Riggs is a national speaker and the founder of Forward, an online book club, and Jumping Tandem, a retreat for writers, authors, entrepreneurs, and other fabulous people who have an amazing dream.

Last year I read a book called Essentialism and it was one of my favorite reads of the year. You might remember it from my list of 10 Best Books I Read in 2015.

I have chronic trouble with making decisions and this book brought things into Claritin-like focus for me. What Soul Keeping by John Ortberg did for my inner life, Essentialism by Greg McKeown did for my outer life – my calendar, commitments, and work-flow objectives.

I don’t know if it just came at the right time or caught me in a perfect magic storm of fatigue, purpose, and motivation, but the book helped me understand and decide what is essential and what is not.

As a result, I’ve said no to a lot of things this year. The more I say no, the easier no becomes. And a stronger no leads to a more obvious yes.

Several months ago, I received an email from Claire Diaz-Ortiz asking me if I could spare 60-minutes for a Skype interview with her.

By itself, that would be something easy for me to say no to. But it was what she said about the interview that made it an absolute yes for me.

Basically, she told me she was working on something called Work By Design. Here are her words in the email to me about it:

“It’s all about stepping back and focusing on what I really care about: banning busy and developing a work life of true purpose, productivity, and profit. It’s a journey, and I’m on it.”

Her ask was for me to take part in a “big, fun, virtual summit” in honor of the launch of her course and I was immediately in. I’m learning the language of my own yeses, and they tend to speak with excitement, not dread.

So I emailed Claire back and said this:

“I’ve basically been saying no to almost every request I get these days as I have been practicing the spiritual discipline of listening to my life (thank you, Parker Palmer) and paying attention to what makes me come most fully alive.

But your description of this has me all woohoo! Which tells me yes, yes I would love to do the Skype interview, absolutely.

Love the idea of your do less method – my favorite book last year was Essentialism by Greg McKeown and it sounds like your thoughts would sing well with his.”

I literally cut and pasted my response so forgive my weird English.

I’m telling you all of this because the next thing that happened is that Claire is all oh yeah, Greg McKeown is my mentor and Essentialism was my favorite book of 2015 too and I’ve been learning from him in person for the past year (that’s my paraphrase) and I’m all OF COURSE YOU HAVE.

So basically one of my favorite reads of 2015 influenced Claire and inspired her to create something essential of her own. When she asked me to be part of it, the yes was easy.

As it turns out, I’m not the only one who thought so.

Here are some more people you might recognize who are also taking part in the big, fun, virtual summit:

If you’re feeling a little scattered and distracted today, you might be surprised to learn what a gift the long walk can be to your soul – especially when you do it as a listener. This practice has been life-changing for me and Adam has been one of my primary teachers.

It seems that everything I read these days has people talking about attentiveness. The bullet train of modern life has our landscapes whizzing by, and some of us have decided we need to slow down or get off the train so we don’t miss what is right in front of us.

I want to propose the spiritual discipline of the long walk. It is long because the monologue racing through our heads takes a while to talk itself out, and it is a walk because moving any faster would make the world blurry, and this is a practice that is meant to slow us down.

We devote too much energy to years and months and hours at the expense of the moment we are currently living. The long walk is about attentiveness, about receiving each moment as a gift and listening to the sermons creation is preaching to us.

The long walk can be practiced anywhere, from a nature walk to an urban neighborhood. The idea behind it is to unplug in order to connect with the Power that surges through the world. I extricate myself from everything, external and internal, that keeps me from being wholly present, and practice a lectio divina of the big book of creation.

For the first ten minutes of my walk I am allowing the fog to drift out of my soul, silencing my mind and heart and giving myself over to God’s gifts in my immediate surroundings.

Then I begin to notice what I see and hear, no matter how big and loud or small and quiet. I’m not trying to insert meaning or concentrate on any one thing; I’m only noticing.

Sometimes if I am wearing glasses I will take them off so I can better pay attention to the sounds around me. Unaided, I have the eyesight of an eighty-year-old man with multiple cataracts, so if I take off my glasses I am largely dependent on my hearing. We tend to take in creation mostly through our eyes, but there is a rich symphony being played if we let our ears do some of the work.

Then, after I have perused the book of creation, taking it in on a large scale, I start to pay attention to anything that flashes or sings out at me, something specific that draws me in.

If the first stage is taking in the symphony as a whole, now I start to focus in on particular instruments. Is it a lizard lounging on the path? Is it a particular birdcall? Is it the wind shaking the leaves? Is it the shape of a branch in a tree? Is it the chorus of nighttime voices?

Whatever it is, study it. Listen to it. What do you see? What do you hear? What seems interesting or significant about it? There is no pressure for our observations to be theological or spiritual; we are simply waking up to the craftsmanship of God’s handiwork around us and listening.

There are plenty of lessons to be drawn from the world if we pay attention. Mountains and oceans counsel patience and remind us to slow down. The author of Proverbs thought the ants were worth paying attention to: “Go to the ant, you lazybones; consider its ways, and be wise. Without having any chief or officer or ruler, it prepares its food in summer, and gathers its sustenance in harvest” (Proverbs 6:6-8).

Jonathan Edwards found great spiritual meaning in a spider web. He concluded a long letter on the subject this way: “Pardon me if I thought I might at least give you occasion to make better observations on these wondrous animals that should be worthy of communicating to the learned world, from whose glistening webs so much of the wisdom of the Creator shines.”

Edwards also used the image of a spider suspended over a flame to portray the terrors of coming before a holy God. The guy had a weird thing for spiders.

If taking a walk is a foreign discipline for you, then you have the Bible as a convenient study guide for interpreting our world.

A rainbow preaches the covenantal promises and mercy of God.

A hen with its chicks reminds us of Jesus’ tender care for his people.

The wind points to the mysterious work of the Holy Spirit.

Rivers echo the justice that will one day cascade down the mountains.

The sunrise is a forerunner to resurrection and new creation.

Grass and flowers remind us of the fading nature of human life and beauty in contrast to the constancy and permanence of God.

A tree takes us into the garden where God gave life in the beginning and takes us to the end when the tree of life will bring the healing of the nations.

Raging bears remind us not to mock a prophet’s baldness.

If something grabs your attention, carry it in your mind and heart as you walk. Let it preach to you for a while. Allow it to draw you into dialogue with the One who imagined it and made it. Let it roll up into gratitude for the beauty, mercy and wisdom he has surrounded us with.

End with “thank you.”

Well then. Excuse me while I go outside and listen to creation’s sermon for an hour or four. I just love this book.

Adam S. McHugh (ThM, Princeton Theological Seminary) is an ordained Presbyterian minister and spiritual director. He has served at two Presbyterian churches, as a hospice chaplain and as campus staff with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. He is also the author of Introverts in the Church and lives in Santa Barbara, California.

Now for the formals: This excerpt is taken from The Listening Life by Adam S. McHugh. Copyright (c) 2015 by Adam S. McHugh. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426.

Every month I send out a list of what I’m currently reading, along with a secret post you won’t find anywhere else. Sign up here to receive that note in your inbox each month. Happy walking.